Hugh Conway

“ Hotel Helicon was shaken out of its sleep by the startling rumor to the effect that Miss Moyne had fallen down the precipice at Eagle’s Nest.
Of all the rudely awakened and mightily frightened inmates, perhaps Miss Moyne herself was most excited by this waft of bad news. She had been sleeping very soundly in dreamless security and did not at first feel the absurdity of being told that she had just tumbled down the escarpment, which in fact she never yet had summoned the courage to approach, even when sustained by a strong masculine arm. ”

“ Your love means a man’s life or death!”
Many a lover has said an equally extravagant thing, but Eugenia Herbert knew that his words were not those of poetical imagery, and as she re-entered the house she trembled at the passion she had aroused. What if time and opposition should work a change in her feelings? She tried to reassure herself by thinking that if she did not love him in the same blind, reckless way, at any rate she would never meet another man whom she could love as she loved Gerald Leigh. ”

“ Black looked at him a moment, as if measuring in her mind his degree of worthiness, then with a wave of her hand she said:
“Never do you dare to dare. Mr. Crane stands right in your path.”
Dufour leaped to his feet with the nimbleness and dangerous celerity of a tiger.
“Crane!” he exclaimed with a world of contempt in his voice, “If he—” but he stopped short and laughed at himself. ”

“ Immediately the reel began to sing and the rod to quiver, while Dufour’s eyes glared almost savagely and his lips pursed with comical intensity.
Round and round flew the trout, now rushing to the bottom of the pool, now whisking under a projecting ledge and anon flinging itself clean above the water and shaking itself convulsively.
The angler was led hither and thither by his active prey, the exercise bedewing his face again with perspiration, whilst his feet felt the cool bath of water and the soothing embrace of tangled water-grass. ”

“ So much out of breath and so deluged with perspiration was Dufour that he flung himself upon the ground beside the brook and lay there panting and mopping his face. Overhead [32] the bit of sky was like turquoise, below a slender glimpse of the valley shone between the rock walls, like a sketch subdued almost to monochrome of crepuscular purple. A fitful breath of cool air fell into the place, fanning the man’s almost purple cheeks and forehead, while a wood-thrush, whose liquid voice might have been regarded as part of the water-tumult, sang in a thorn tree hard by. ”

“ How can we ever account for a woman who has written forty-three novels under such circumstances and has died, finally, a devout Christian and a staunch friend of her publisher? Poor thing! up to the hour of her demise, white-haired, wrinkled, over-worked, nervous and semi-paralytic, she nursed the rosy hope that to-morrow, or at the very latest, the day after to-morrow, the reward of all her self-devotion would come to her in the form of a liberal copyright statement from her long-suffering and charitable publisher. ”

“ Nevertheless, being a respectable doctor and a man of peace, I was compelled to interfere. I held Carriston’s arm while Mr. Sharpe struggled to his feet, and after collecting his hat and his pocket-book, stood glaring vengefully at his assailant, and rubbing the while such of the weals on his back as he could reach. Annoyed as I felt at the unprofessional fracas, I could scarcely help laughing at the man’s appearance. I doubt the possibility of any one looking heroic after such a thrashing.
“I’ll have the law for this,” he growled. “I ain’t paid to be beaten by a madman.” ”

“ No matter how fine the effect of clouds and peaks and sky and gorge, no matter how pure and exhilarating the air, or how blue the filmy deeps of distance, or how mossy the rocks, or how sweet the water, or how cool the wooded vales, the hotel stands there in an indefinite way, with no raison d’etre visible in its make-up, but with an obvious impudence gleaming from its windows. One cannot deport one’s self at such a place as if born there. ”

“ Miss Moyne ventured, “you are a realist.”
It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the peculiar shade of contempt she conveyed through the words. She lifted her head a little higher and her beauty rose apace. It was as if she had stamped her little foot and exclaimed: “Of all things I detest realism—of all men, I hate realists.”
“But I kept the wine off your dress!” he urged, as though he had heard her thought. “There’s nothing good but what is real. ”

“ Miss Crabb appeared in the parlor promptly and met Tolliver with a cordiality that, instead [84] of reassuring him, threw him into another fit of embarrassment from which he at first made no effort to recover. His wide-brimmed hat, as he twirled it on his knees, quivered convulsively in accord with the ague of excitement with which his whole frame was shaking. He made certain soundless movements with his lips, as if muttering to himself. ”

“ I was by this time something like a huge white plaster of Paris figure, and the snow which had accumulated on the old dog-cart made it run heavier by half-a-ton, more or less. By the time I came to that unlucky junction of roads at which my misfortune began it was almost dark; the sky as black as a tarpaulin, yet sending down the white feathery flakes thicker and faster than ever. ”

“ He bore a likeness to his father, but the likeness was but an outward one. By this time he was a cold cynical man of the world. He had not lived the best of lives, but, being no fool, had gained experience and caution. He was clever enough to study human nature with a view of turning his knowledge to account. Eugenia had some pride of birth; her brother had, or affected, a great deal more. He was by no means unpopular; few men could make themselves more agreeable and fascinating than James Herbert when it was worth his while to be so. ”

“ Philpot, who wore gold eye-glasses and had elongated dimples in her cheeks and chin, dexterously managed to have a word or two with the stranger, who smiled upon her graciously without attempting to enter into a conversation. Miss Moyne fared a little better, for she had the charm of grace and beauty to aid her, attended by one of those puffs of good luck which come to none but the young and the beautiful. ”

“ A bucket half-full of common red clay stood in one corner, and on the table were several of the little clay figures which had excited the farmer’s ire and consternation.
Crude, defective, full of faults as they were, there was enough power in them to make Mr. Herbert look at the lad in wonderment, almost envy. He was a man who worshipped art; who had dabbled as an amateur in painting and sculpturing for years; who considered a gifted artist the most fortunate of mankind. So the word envy is not ill-chosen. ”

“ In quiet, conservative places like Coombe-Acton, a farm of this kind often goes from father to son with more regularity than an entailed estate, landlord and tenant well knowing that their interests are identical.
It was a fine afternoon towards the end of June. Abraham Leigh was standing by the gate of the field known as the home meadow looking at the long, ripe grass rippling as the summer breeze swept across it. He was a thoroughly good specimen of the Somersetshire farmer. A big, sturdy man, whose movements were slow and deliberate. ”

“ From morn to night he thumbed and pushed about the ductile clay. He laughed in a sort of bitter triumph. His hands had not lost their cunning. The work grew and grew apace until the clay was done with, and a fair white block of marble stood in the centre of the studio waiting to be hewn into the statue which was to be Gerald Leigh’s first high bid for fame. ”

“ Now, Miss Herbert’s half-formed plan of action when she found herself face to face with her ill-treated lover, had been something like this—she would walk up to him and simply say, “Gerald, I am come.” The rest must be left to him, but she believed, in spite of her weakness and treachery, he would freely forgive her all.
Gerald was not in the studio. The gas was half-turned down, and the clay casts on the wall looked grim and spectral. But, if Gerald was not in the room it was still inhabited. On a low couch—a couch covered by a rich Oriental rug—lay a woman, fast asleep. ”

“ Carlotta’s romantic vengeance was an utter failure. Lady Norgate and her husband were, in truth, no farther apart than they had been for many months. Eugenia was indifferent.
And, as time goes on, grows more and more so. Indifferent to wealth, indifferent to rank, to pleasure, even to pain. She cherishes nothing, cares for nothing, [197] save the remembrance that she was once loved by Gerald Leigh—that he bade her give him life or death—that although she gave him death, he died with her name on his lips! ”

“ Eagle’s Nest was the name of a small area on the top of a beetling cliff whose almost perpendicular wall was dotted with clumps of sturdy little cedar trees growing out of the chinks. It was a dizzy place at all times, but by night the effect of its airy height was very trying on any but the best nerves. Crane and Peck both were men of fine physique and were possessed of stubborn courage and great combativeness. ”

“ Herbert glanced from the rough clay sketches to the pale boy who stood breathless, as one expecting a verdict of life or death, he wondered what could have been the cause of such a divergence from the traits habitual to the Leighs. Then he remembered that some twenty years ago Abraham Leigh had chosen for a wife, not one of his own kind, but a dweller in cities—a governess, who exchanged, no doubt, a life of penury and servitude for the rough but comfortable home the Somersetshire farmer was willing to give her. ”

“ Now, by a remarkable coincidence, I was spending the night with the very man, who, so far as my memory served me, must have sat for the portrait shown me at Brand’s house.
“I wonder what I did with the photo,” I said. I turned out my letter-case. There it was, right enough! Shading it with one hand, I carefully compared it with the sleeper.
Not a doubt about it! So far as a photograph taken from a picture can go, it was the man himself. The same ragged beard, the same coarse features, the same surly look. Young Carriston was evidently a wonderful hand at knocking off a likeness. ”

“ Crane tried not to show the bitterness he felt as he saw his hope of winning the favor of Miss Moyne fading rapidly out, but now and again a cloud of irresistible melancholy fell upon him.
At such times it was his habit to lean upon the new fence that circumscribed Hotel Helicon and dreamily smoke a cigar. He felt a blind desire to assassinate somebody, if he could only know who. Of course not Peck, for Peck, too, [82] was disconsolate, but somebody, anybody who would claim the place of a successful rival. ”

“ After dismissing his visions and hallucinations with the contempt which they deserved, the fact of a man who was madly, passionately in love with a woman, and who believed that she had been entrapped and [262] was still kept in restraint, sitting down quietly, and letting day after day pass without making an effort toward finding her, was in itself prima facie evidence of insanity. A sane man would at once have set all the engines of detection at work.
I felt that if once Ralph Carriston obtained possession of him he could make out a strong case in his own favor. ”

“ Many women and some men have shown that it is possible for a vivid imagination and a brilliant style in writing to go close along with a practical judgment and a fair share of selfish shrewdness in matters of bargain and sale. Still, after all, it remains true that a strong majority of literary people are of the Micawber genus, with great faith in what is to turn up, always nicely balancing themselves on the extreme verge of expectancy and gazing over into the promise-land of fame and fortune with pathetically hopeful, yet awfully hollow eyes. ”

“ I glanced at him askance. This morbid suspicion of his cousin amounted almost to monomania. He had told the tale of Madeline’s disappearance clearly and tersely; but when he began to account for it his theory was a wild and untenable one. However much he suspected Ralph Carriston of longing to stand in his shoes, I could see no object for the crime of which he accused him, that of decoying away Madeline Rowan.
“But why should he have done this?” I asked. “To prevent your marriage? You are young; he must have foreseen that you would marry some day.” ”

“ There is no middle course—no question of joy or misery—simply life or death! Eugenia, look at me and say you love me!”
His dark eyes charmed and compelled her. “I love you! I love you?” she murmured. Her words satisfied him; moreover, she let the hand he grasped remain in his, perhaps even returning the pressure of his own. So they stood for more than an hour, whilst Gerald [163] talked of the future and the fame he meant to win—talked as one who has the fullest confidence in his own powers and directing genius.
Presently they saw Mr. Herbert walking through the twilight towards them. ”